Traffic congestion is a constant challenge for cities in both developed and developing countries. One solution is to implement expensive sensor-based systems for traffic management. An alternative, and potentially more cost-effective, approach is to focus on crowd-sourced data.

This Research Note describes an emerging markets traffic information solution based on information crowd sourced from users’ social media posts. The Kenyan start-up Ma3route, which has developed the solution, plans to roll it out to other African and emerging market cities suffering from traffic congestion.